432 



THROUGH JUNGLE AND DESERT chap. 



always taken pains to keep the Somali and Soudanese 

 as separate as possible from the porters, I knew this 

 complaint was absolutely without foundation. I sus- 

 pected that it was not of their own volition that these 

 men had come to me with this complaint, and that 

 some member of the caravan was bent upon stirring 

 up discontent and strife ; but despite all my efforts I 

 was unable to discover who the person was. The new- 

 comers seemed bent upon impressing it on my mind 

 that they held the key to the situation, which was 

 more or less true ; for they had received three months' 

 advance pay at the coast, and as yet the three months 

 had not expired; so that they had no particular 

 reason for remaining with me. The delay forced 

 upon me gave them lots of idle time for discussing 

 and plotting their purpose, as I could not make work 

 sufficient to occupy them all, and greater discontent 

 seemed to spread among them day by day. The men 

 I had sent to Sayer, upon their return complained 

 unceasingly of the condition of the road over which 

 they had been forced to march, and said they would 

 rather spend their lives on the road from Mombasa to 

 Uganda than walk five days over this lava-strewn soil. 



I must say, I sympathized with them, for the road 

 was very bad ; nevertheless, I had had no hand in 

 making it, and in walking over it I had suffered 

 nearly as much as they. I lay awake one entire 

 night pondering over the question presented by these 

 men, and finally concluded they were by no means a 

 favourable accession to my force. They were trouble- 

 some and insubordinate ; five of them had already 

 deserted, and the remainder seemed to favour a similar 



